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Ethnologue: Languages of the World
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Ethnologue > Web version > Country index > Africa > Kenya > Turkana

Turkana

A language of Kenya

ISO 639-3: tuv

Population  451,000 in Kenya (2006). Over 60% monolingual. Population total all countries: 476,200.
Region  Rift Valley Province, Turkana, Samburu, Trans-Nzoia, Laikipia, Isiolo districts, west and south of Lake Turkana; Turkwel and Kerio rivers. Also in Ethiopia.
Language map  Kenya, reference number 56
Alternate names   Buma, Bume, Turkwana
Dialects  Northern Turkana, Southern Turkana. Inherently intelligible with Toposa speakers, but hostile to them. Also partially intelligible with Karamojong [kdj], Jie [kdj], and Nyangatom [nnj], but all 5 are ethnically distinct. There are a few phonological, lexical, and discourse marker differences between them. Northern Turkana [tuv] and Eastern Toposa [toq] are more similar to Southern Turkana [tuv] and Western Toposa [toq] are farther apart linguistically. The 4 varieties form a subgroup divided in the middle by the Kenya-Sudan border. Lexical similarity: 85% similarity with Karamojong, 76% with Teso.
Classification  Nilo-Saharan, Eastern Sudanic, Nilotic, Eastern, Lotuxo-Teso, Teso-Turkana, Turkana
Language use  Vigorous. GIDS 6. Home, social gatherings. All ages. Only a few adults also use Kiswahili [swh], Pökoot [pko], or Daasanach [dsh]. More learn Kiswahili because of a new road.
Language development  Literacy rate in L1: 5%–10%. Literacy rate in L2: 25%–50%. NT: 1986.
Writing system  Latin script.
Comments  A few Somali and Gikuyu have shops in the area. Seminomadic. Unfriendly to other nomadic tribes due to rivalry over livestock. VSO; highly inflectional; grammatical tone; vowel harmony; voiceless vowels. Pastoralists: cattle, sheep, goats, camels, donkeys; fishermen. Traditional religion, Christian.

Also spoken in:

Ethiopia

Language name   Turkana
Population  25,200 in Ethiopia (2000).
Region  Southwest region west of Omo River.
Language map  Southwestern Ethiopia, reference number 80
Comments  Seminomadic. Pastoralists: cattle, sheep, goats, camels, donkeys; fishermen. Traditional religion, Christian.
 

Entries from the SIL Bibliography about this language:

Academic Publications

ARENSEN, Jonathan E., author. 1983. Sticks and Straw: Comparative House Forms in Southern Sudan and Northern Kenya.  Available for purchase